Essay:
Momila
Questions Still Remain…!
Wow! Isn’t it very exciting trying to distinguish your relatives and the strangers in the dark negative of life, or to walk in the extreme dark without stumbling anywhere, or getting lost in an almost faded old autographs of the life, or becoming a bard searching the curio in the archeological world within the self, or metamorphosing oneself as the protagonist of the interesting book one is reading leading to purgation…! (Aansu lukai parelima khusi muskurairahe [Hiding the tears in the eyebrows, I smiled the happiness]…this is the ringtone of my mobile…)
- Hello…! Namaskar! I’m the dweller of the earth.
- Hello…! Namaskar! I’m speaking from the heaven.
- Oh! Namaskar! Namaskar!!
- It seems you are happier ever since you are exiled in that hell!
- Oh yes, I am happy; I am happy with the last exciting question that has no answer.
- You are someone who cannot be happy without questions…
- Yes, I feel there is no excitement without questions! As there is no action without a reason, similarly there is no consequence without the question. Look at the most beautiful hell in the universe on the stage of this earth!
In the autobiography of an influential and dense life, outside, a reader sees something special; but the protagonist of the same life doesn’t find anything special in it. Probably, in this distance moves the sequence of life; and this sequence itself heighten as the hill of questions. And it seems that these poor dwellers of the hell or the humans think that their attempt of climbing this hill is dynamism and feel their self because the characters can jump not only to the stage but outside the stage at the audience and try to move and touch, to love and hate. And many draw a line between reality and idealism in their own understanding. It is not only a still photography, not even a painting or a film where characters cannot go beyond the frame.
Experiencing the freedom outside the frame rather than the monotony of being caged inside the frame, or putting an end to all the possibilities by committing suicide rather than risking the problems of the old age, or closing the eyes to finally become the prey of a python by forgetting the distance between the courtyard and life once one sees the python entering into the courtyard of his/her life, or denying to keep waiting for someone else after the death of the husband to avoid the pain of burning youth, or the photographer who wants to commit suicide to avoid the guilt of receiving the award for his photograph of the hungry child who is going to die and whose death the vulture is waiting; and beautiful myths about his lamentation that stops the possibilities of hundreds of children. Similar to them, now I am walking down the sliding hill of questions which is heightening between the distance of truth and untruth, right and wrong. Maybe, now I’m a character of your sympathy! But I’m not engrossed to become a special creator, director or an audience. Instead, I’m simply enacting the role by taking the confusion you have created as an agreed contract. And I am confident—you are enjoying exciting freedom in the audience in this worldly stage.
This moment, people here or the helpless characters in your opinion, want to walk free in the pollution-free primordial dreamland either of libraries opened to create intellectual pollution or educational institutions or the shrines erected to wash away the sins or the so-called service delivery centers that only deliver pain, and courts established only to veil the justice. Like a natural departure from the sorrow or zenith of the darkness to happiness or the light or like suddenly having lived the life, like inhaling oxygen, like the rain, like the flowing of the river, like the blooming of the flowers, like the laughter of the child, like the cry, or let us say, like the dawn or dark, now here, even the falling of the curtain is like the honest beginning of the novelty. By now even the rumor you have created has become a cherished habit, an extraordinary riddle of entertainment. That is why more than trying to know about me, you are in a state of beautiful sweet envy.
It is true that innumerable paths have lined up here and likewise innumerable destination tied up to them. Sun and moon walk along in those paths and so do the mysteries and questions. Like the caravan of the lovely stars, these questions born in the mystery sometimes go east to west, and at other times west to east. You perhaps are lost in the liveliness of these trees, springs, rivers, happy dances, songs, poems and music that invite all nawarasa, and cultures which you consider illusions. In other words, you are trapped in the beautiful illusion you have created yourself. And in these romantic times, even in my absence, you gaze me in fascination. To tell the truth, you are the one who made me tolerate the pain of being the rock of Ahalya in this earth along with the desire to free from it. I’m tolerating it continuously for many seasons; I’m continuously walking amidst the dissents. But I know— you are enjoying the scenes of the flashes these collisions create. Rather I’m praying that you don’t develop wishes to barter heaven with my earth because I can’t accept the history of boons begotten by sacrificing in the prayers sans actions.
In my opinion, you are completely enchanted by the personality of the earth as melodious as the river, and the artistic life a man which is better than you ever imagined. Here in this faraway land in the earth, Ivan Aivazovsky is painting the picture of different motions of the river sitting by the window side near the riverbank. Van Gogh is sketching the sunflowers in the field itself. Sitting on the imaginary winged-horses, Manujbabu is collecting all the worldly ugliness from the sky of his own room and painting beautifully ugly pictures challenging the sky. You are keenly observing the earth as if it is a multi-colored gallery. As you kept watching, I know, you fell in love not only with the river but also the paintings of the river. I know not only the sunflowers in the field, but also the paintings of them have fascinated you. I know, through Manujbabu’s paintings, you not only derived the heavenly bliss but also the experience of the shaking surface of the heaven. For sure, you are ashamed with me for your own weaknesses.
What do you know about the one who through the illusion of life gives the curse of death? Those precious glamorous moments of those people whose deaths are determined…! You go to any corner of the earth—you’ll find scattered those lively glamour. Somewhere you’ll see the growing urgency of love even in the influence of hate. Like the world’s best epic based on hate, how happy becomes his beloved when he hugs her by his wide chest even after he loses both his hands in the war! That is a romance beyond your imagination because you are neither delighted nor saddened by the terror of love. Therefore, I know—the heaven that has frozen inside you is for sure melting by the colorful queries about the earth. Probably, the heaven is gradually flowing down the earth like the snow-river, who knows!
Ultimately, one that falls has to remain on top. The earth has the gravitational pull, but the heaven doesn’t have any such magical attraction that can attract the earth towards it and stick in its chest with love. The beauty of Parijat’s bald headed Sakambari, and the beauty of her nicotine-effected yellowed fingers can’t be understood by other than Suyogbir who only dreams of her; how can you then? In your nil, there is no foundation of the dream reality!
If fact, you are ignorant about the silent beauty of the earth-dwellers who do not want to lose the designs of beauty by disapproving those bunches of defeated clouds that could not carry water for the earth. When the crowd leaves, the solitude itself suffers from loneliness because you are ignorant of the on-the-spot splendor of the earth! When the playful cloud leaves, the sky becomes gloomy! Dry and tasteless! Ugly!! Sans music!! Have you ever felt it? Maybe with your ego, you consider this earth material, and disapprove it at the first instance. But probably you are unaware of the fact that while disapproving the earth, you are also disapproving its beauty or the spirituality. And probably, you might easily accept the music of the earth that I hum thinking it as spiritual. Even in doing that, you will be ignorant of the fact that you are indirectly approving the materiality of this earth. In reality, you are a power advocating the eternal bliss. But now you can read in my eyes the lined-up unnamed waves of kindness born in response to your ignorance.
Rather, leave all these things. Leave the opinions and arguments; leave all the network of logics! Where there are no any lovable riddles, where there are no tasteful colours of pleasure. So, try only to feel it; feel it only. Actually your leaning towards earth is not hidden from any reader.
— Hello! Are you listening to me?
— For sure! I’m not only listening, I’m completely enchanted by you and your earth.
— If it is so, I’m inviting you with all fondness to my earth which gets excited in the hide-and-seek of the day and night, or the light and darkness…!
— It is not that way either! Rather, let us exchange the earth and the heaven as the best of the solution.
— But, I don’t want any heaven; I love what you consider the pains of this hell-like earth. Moreover, I’m a woman. People say woman is like the earth. Even if you are a man and your heaven the symbol of men’s happiness; and even if you get me and my earth in exchange of you and your heaven, or I get you and your heaven in exchange of me and my earth, we will still be incomplete in this universe. The heaven and the hell both will remain incomplete because the heaven and the hell, or all truths related to them are not merely colours, religions or party identities; they complement each other like the light and darkness, or like a woman and a man, whether they are physical realities or beliefs. Like a man attempting suicide also longs for the margin of life when he almost approaches death, let us attempt for our unique existence even if we are living below a sliding rock of questions! Let us move towards totality!! Ultimately, even these contradicting truths are impossible and incomplete without the same diametrical co-existence. It seems, for love-hate or trust-mistrust to exist, an approval for the self and fondness for each other are enough. For this reason, more than any achievement, let the fragrance of love move far and wide!
In conclusion—
Experiencing all the mysteries for the last time, our existence and exploration of truth ends here for today. Like getting wet even after being covered by an umbrella or like a sea that always lives thirsty, questions still remain…!...!!
Translation: Keshab Sigdel
